Tag Archives: merit-based points system

A new element of the immigration reform Senate Bill 744, “The Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act” is coming into play, namely a proposed merit-based points system, similar to ones found in Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The points system — an immigration-management tool that will be used to decide who is suitable to enter the US — would allocate new immigrant visas to foreign-born people who meet certain criteria. Each year, the new system would allow between 120,000-250,000 immigrants to obtain immigrant visas through an accumulation of points based on skill, employment history and education. This points-based system is intended to replace the current Diversity Visa Lottery.

The “Desired Immigrant”

This points system shows that the US government does indeed favor a particular type of immigrant, a “desired immigrant”. The system would be more beneficial to certain immigrants over others, like those seeking employment-based immigration. Many immigrants would be at a disadvantage, including women, middle aged and older adults, and those from developing nations. The points system would be divided into characteristics that the US considers beneficial in a visa candidate, such as education, occupation, work experience, English language proficiency and age.

The Two Tiers

During the fifth fiscal year after the immigration reform bill is passed and the points system is introduced, DHS would assign merit-based visas in two “tiers”, and would give 50% of the visas to applicants with the highest number of points in tier 1, and the other 50% to applicants with the highest number of points in tier 2. Tier 1 is for high-skilled workers and tier 2 is for lower-skilled workers.

The points system favors employment and educational categories over the others; and desires immigrants who are educated, experienced, fluent in English, and young. The system seems to be heavily influenced by economics, placing large value in immigrants’ ability to generate economic worth.

Disadvantaged Immigrants

Moreover, the system is biased against women. Women in other countries frequently have less education and work experience opportunities, allowing the points system to naturally favor men. Though Tier 2 acknowledges women by creating a separate caregiver characteristic, it only grants 10 points, which doesn’t count for much when compared to the employment background characteristic, which totals 40 points.

Family-based immigration is also minimized in the system. Similar to the caregiver characteristic, the siblings or adult sons/daughters of US citizens characteristic only receives 10 points, which, again, doesn’t account for a lot. The system also emphasizes age discrimination and nationality bias, by preferring young immigrants who come from countries with low US migration.